Internal and external, personal and objective

One thing you have to recognise is that you have personal values and needs and that these needs are important. When you know your flow type, you already have a rough idea about the values most important to this type. But what about the other values?

An INFP places key significance on introversion, intuition, feeling, and perceiving. When balanced within these needs: private, honest, creative, and in harmony with self, INFPs feel that all is well. When INFPs feel forced or pressured, they start pulling on their inferior functions to protect themselves and to endure the situation. They become hardened busy-bodies, nitpicky and hyperactive. I call it the Steamroller mode.The inferior functions can be activated by force, where the dominant functions are always on. Because these two modes are so extreme, we can often relate very strongly to them.

It is different with the functions located in our autopilot. For an INFP, the autopilot represents things within their comfort zone, introverted and perceiving, but outside their personal values, intuition and feeling. Because the autopilot is objective, and because we don’t personally value what we do in the autopilot, it represents mundane day to day behaviour and our autopilot. We don’t necessarily notice these at all.

The inspired functions are valued, but they are like the inferior functions perceived as external: we want the outside world to give us these values, and INFPs want the world to show them kindness, to give them freedom. INFPs want a world that shows them the passion INFPs generally keep hidden within self, and they are looking for someone or some cause with a compelling vision. The inspired functions inspire an INFP, but they have to constantly be reinforced by their environment, by friends, family, or their partners. If these values are not given or readily available, INFPs can feel forced to turn towards the autopilot.

Levels of health

We can talk about health in this, where we can see an INFP who is in their natural state, their dominant. These INFPs are generally balanced and calm, relaxed, and natural. They have a mostly internal worldview. They do things for themselves and for reasons they find within, in their sense of harmony, their compass, and their personal truth. These INFPs are also personal and subjective, because they live in a way that aligns with their own values, rather than objective circumstance or for more pragmatic reasons. Objective rewards such as money or material values are only valued as a secondary thing, other things come first.

The forced INFP feels constantly burdened by outside necessity. They have no time to be alone and do not get their much needed privacy, they are forced to ignore what they personally feel is right, and cant let themselves have change because they feel bound by protocol. These INFPs act as if they have been forced into a corner or into a situation and that they at least for the moment have no choice over their situation.

The inspired INFP acts unusually passionate and excited, propelled forward by a vision, but this vision comes from an outside cause. They are inspired by the kindness of other people and the free-spiritedness of others, and begin to mimic these traits. When these traits begin to disappear, unhealthy INFPs can start to demand it from others, as they want to maintain their inspired state and do not believe themselves to possess these qualities without other people.

The mundane INFP acts on autopilot, doing their day to day tasks without passion or personal motivation. They are focused on day to day musts, always new things coming up, always things happening around them that need to be taken care of. These INFPs have a mostly internal worldview, they will do these things even if there is no boss, parent or outside authority to enforce this behaviour. It is just a natural thing they do despite that they do not enjoy it much, because it feels slightly fulfilling when it is done.

Which mode are you in?

AUTHOR

Erik Thor

I am an INFJ and I want to combat the stereotypes and help promote personality psychology that doesn't limit or mistype you.

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